Making combat more challenging: increase monster level or monster number?

[CapnZapp]

My experience is that elites and solos and soldiers work surprisingly badly as soon as you leave the characters' level.

I have tried several times in an attempt to evoke a "this critter is seriously bad-ass" feeling, and failed everytime*.

High-level elites, solos and soldiers doesn't come across as especially threatening. They come across as being especially boringly unkillable.

*) With the sole exception when I pitted a Dragon at them, which I boosted through the roof (granting it a much wider area for its breath attack, doubling the damage of that breath attack, giving it roughly 50% more attacks, in addition to the MM2 guidelines of less hp and lower defenses). This dragon was 5 levels higher already from the start - and still it needed its offensive to be more than doubled to present a serious threat (a threat the group had to think in order to overcome)

For my next campaign, I am going to seriously start to ignore the 4E philosophy on damage. Instead of making "serious threats" of higher level, I'm just going to make them do double damage or do triple attacks (etc).

(Incidentally, some of the most exciting fights have been against foes where 4E apparently inadvertantly accomplished this on its own. I have one word for you: Greataxe. Orcs and Grimlocks work beautifully. They're brutes, so they're fun to kill. They do whopping amounts of damage - despite being legit 4E critters - so they're fun to kill. Basically, they're the most fun monsters to kill thus far!)

 

[CapnZapp]

I'd agree.

We're up another percent!

In general: having high defenses is a lethal blow to a game already accused of having too many monster hit points.

 

[Starfox]

I've been using 50% more monsters with half hit points so far, which has worked decently but lead to long fights.

I might just try to let monsters do double damage and have half hp (but normal numbers) instead.

 

[KarinsDad]

I've realized that higher level soldiers are no fun...in one game I'm running here, the group is fighting a lvl 4 elite soldier and the lvl 1 shaman is missing on a 14... no good.

Could be the elite status.

DMs have to be careful, regardless of the fact that 4E has the simple formula to put together a challenge in 2 minutes.

The DM should look at the "to hit range" of his players and determine the frequency of them hitting their foes. It's something that can be skipped for n-1 to n+1 foes, but higher level should be looked at.

I think WotC kind of inadvertently encourages this lack of due diligence on the part of DMs because the monster system is fairly well defined.

 

[Jack99]

Try two higher level solos for a good challenge.. Fun fun.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Try trapping them with 2 normal encounters in a row without giving the short rest, so they cant heal or regain encounter powers.

Or do like my Rat-Bastard DM did and give you four encounters at once with no break between! That was freaking awesome! We were pretty desperate by the end but managed to save a few dailies for the main bad guy.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Or do like my Rat-Bastard DM did and give you four encounters at once with no break between! That was freaking awesome! We were pretty desperate by the end but managed to save a few dailies for the main bad guy.

We did this once, once, and it pretty much sucked. The last thing 4E needs is to force people into using nothing but at-wills for 2½ encounters. Twin Strike for 20 rounds straight = suckage.

 

[KarinsDad]

We did this once, once, and it pretty much sucked. The last thing 4E needs is to force people into using nothing but at-wills for 2½ encounters. Twin Strike for 20 rounds straight = suckage.

I say the same thing for a single encounter when I consider that my PC only has two Encounter powers. Suckage.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I can't agree with you there, though, KD. IME, encounters don't last more than 5-6 rounds, tops. Even with only 2 encounter powers, that's at a minimum 1/3 the time. Unless you burn them both immediately (unusual) and then use at-wills for 4 rounds, it doesn't seem like so much suckage. Having only 2 encounters is not an average number, though, even for low level (e.g. 3rd). No class features or racial powers or utilities or items? Actually, maybe not items because I'm not sure they have encounter powers. But, my 3rd level elven ranger has I think 4 encounter powers to use. I could've chosen my utility has a daily, but I can't then blame that on the system.

Also, even in the worst case you'll get to use your dailies, probably at a minimum 1 per 2 encounters (if the utility is not an encounter it must be a daily, plus you have your normal daily and likely an item daily). If there are, what, 4 encounters per day that makes 1 per 2, and probably more.

Plus action points. Plus skill usage.

Nope, I can't agree that it's suckage in the normal course of events, except for extraordinarily long combats of course.

 

[KarinsDad]

Also, even in the worst case you'll get to use your dailies, probably at a minimum 1 per 2 encounters (if the utility is not an encounter it must be a daily, plus you have your normal daily and likely an item daily). If there are, what, 4 encounters per day that makes 1 per 2, and probably more.

Plus action points. Plus skill usage.

Nope, I can't agree that it's suckage in the normal course of events, except for extraordinarily long combats of course.

All of these apply to the 4 encounters in 1 situation that you were just saying was suckage. The only difference is using Encounters once each instead of four times each. The At Wills and Dailies and Skill Usage is the same.


It's just a matter of where one draws the line.

I happen to consider 4 Encounter powers too few, especially for encounters greater than n level and because the powers can often be situational. You consider them sufficient.

My wife, for example, uses the same At Will 80% of the time or more. The reason is because many of her Encounter powers are specialized. But, that does not bother her. She doesn't need or want a lot of variety. It would drive me as a player nuts.